Review: Tyler Fassnacht | Photo: Camille Howe
Unfortunately for me, I was kind of late jumping onto the Yo La Tengo bandwagon. Up until last years solid Popular Songs, I had never listened to them extensively, but after familiarizing myself with that record, I was opened up to their amazing back catalogue. I really consider myself lucky for getting into the band just in time for their show at the Barrymore.
The evening began with openers, Times New Viking, who I am a big fan of in their own right. It really is a great feeling going to a show where you know all the bands playing. At least for me, it feels like you are getting more bang for your buck. As an opening act, TNV did not disappoint. They came out, barely talked to the audience, played a set that was short but sweet and then left. Now, because I am a fan of the group I would have liked to see more of them, but when taking into consideration that it was a Yo La Tengo show and TNV played different enough music that I could easily have seen how some attendees would not have enjoyed them, their short set seemed very tasteful. With their VERY lo-fi sound, bass-less noise pop songs that often went into the not so poppy terrain and fuzzed out unintelligible vocals, they can be hard to get into, especially if you are just being introduced. After they finished, I was left content having heard all my favorite songs and witnessing their fun energy. Personally, I could not have asked for a better start to the night, and not surprisingly it just got better.
By the time Yo La Tengo came out, the Barrymore was packed and up at the front you could tell everyone there were dedicated fans to the band. The set opened with “Periodically Triple or Double,” from Popular Songs, with lots of energy and excitement from both the band and the audience. The song didn’t really end as much as it more flowed into the fast version of “Big Day Coming.” This is a large component to Yo La Tengo live, when they often just transition their songs together, keeping the noise going even when switching instruments for the following song. This made the concert very engaging and helped prevent a break in attention from the audience. Of course there were many other factors to their live performance that kept the audience’s attention too.
The setlist drew heavily from Popular Songs, which was to be expected, and was no problem, as the excellent songs were only made better live. Besides that, the group did well accounting for their entire catalogue in the set, with a noticeably large amount of tracks from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, which was fantastic as that is one of my favorite records. The band played approximately two hours of material, which included two encores, several covers, audience requests, an impromptu song with Times New Viking and many long jams.
These jams bring me to another large part of the live Yo La Tengo experience, because they tend to become a little self-indulgent live, but they do a pretty good job of keeping that stuff interesting at the same time. Even if you aren’t a big fan of the awesome guitar noise solos/keyboard noise solos, it is just plain entertaining to watch singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan. Visually, when he gets going, it seems like he is actually fighting with his guitar, hitting it, flinging it about and aggressively messing with the tuning. His guitar tech was busy the whole night. As the rest of the band held down the structure of the songs, Kaplan jumped about the stage with an electric one second, and then sang beautifully with an acoustic guitar the next. The show was perfect for showcasing all the angles of Yo La Tengo as a band. It showed their fast pop songs, their psychadelic songs, their long noisy songs and their soft endearing songs. They ended the night with a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “I Found a Reason,” that left the audience speechless. I didn’t leave the show wanting more or less than what was given to me, as it was perfectly satisfying and I honestly cannot wait until these guys come back around to Wisconsin.
Discuss: What did you think of the show? How does last night’s show compare to past Yo La Tengo shows you’ve seen? Drop a comment and share your thoughts/reviews on the show.
Buy: Yo La Tengo | Popular Songs
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MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
